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Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Apparently female bonding rituals include being exfoliated and moisturized at the ubiquitous spa. My sister is going to be out of the country for a while and came down to drop off her dog, who will be staying with us, and to do some sisterly-bonding time by treating me to a massage and wrap at a local spa. Despite some straight-line winds or mini-tornado that tried to blow my car off the road on the way, we arrived on time. My sister commented that it's better to be in such a situation with a friend, rather than a significant other or sibling since a friend would immediately agree with you that it was indeed a tornado instead of saying "Nah, it was just a lot of wind." We were kind of relieved to see that the spa itself was in the basement of a well-built home set into a hill though.

Once we arrived in the reception area, somewhat frazzled, there was the obligatory questionaire which I found to be funny. It had place on it that asked "Have you ever been to a spa before? If not, why?" My answer, as truthfully as I could make it, was "No, because I'm poor, but my sister isn't." An even more truthful answer would have been "No, because I don't understand how paying someone to scrub my feet and wrap them up in hot towels is a good use of money." But that was before I'd had my feet scrubbed and wrapped in hot towels. We both had a hot stone massage followed by hand and feet massages, after which our hands and feet were scrubbed, moisturized, and wrapped in hot towels and then put into plastic bags which were firmly tied around each extremity. As my sister commented "Glad we weren't getting facials..." We finished up with a wrap which consists of being scrubbed down, oiled up, and wrapped up like a burrito with the heater on high.

I can definitely see some good points to this bonding ritual--the massage was lovely and just spending some time with my sister was great.

One of the best parts of the day though was the lovely dinner that followed the spa time, created by Himself. A chipotle cream sauce with cedar plank grilled salmon and asparagus with butter and parm. It was the perfect end to a fantastic day!

Monday, May 30, 2011

On this Memorial Day, it is a time to remember those who gave their lives for our freedom. It's also a time to thank those who have served and are still serving our country--our military I think are the true last servants and protectors of the Constitution.

Happy Birthday belatedly to John Wayne. A man who truly loved this country and understood it more than those who profess to lead it today. They should listen to the first video and learn something. It's too bad that many of the things he celebrates have gone the way of the dodo, such as moving freely about this country without fear or hindrance. More people need to know how it was and so can reclaim it.

John Wayne on the Pledge of Allegiance:

John Wayne Speaking Truth:

And my favorite scene from McClintock:

And just because... The fight scene from The Quiet Man--the whole long way (the melee starts at 6:10):

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Just thought all of you wonderful folks would want to know that as of tonight (May 26, 2011), over $10,000 worth of supplies have been donated through Amazon that will be delivered tomorrow and early next week. That doesn't include the monetary donations y'all have sent in addition to the money Himself and I are sending down.

So 'Climate Change' is now some semi-self-aware deity force that is specifically targeting urban areas, at least in Al Roker's mind. If you go with the theory on Egregore, maybe Algore and his followers have actually caused a new deity to be born (they truly have created a new religion, complete with fanatics so who knows). But that's a whole different blogpost.

What Roker said struck me in a different way that's endemic in the press. Urban vs Rural. Himself said a week or so ago--"Why are the possessions of folks in a larger town or city more valuable than the possessions and homes of folks in a more rural setting?" People who live/work/breathe in urban areas try to extrapolate out agendas that may work in their highly populated hothouse environment, like high speed rail, into a totally different ecosystem. If something affects an urban area, it is seen as more significant. I just don't get it.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

I talked to my cousin, who is on her way into Joplin with food (BBQ) and other supplies (they live less than an hour away). She says that, although the people are starting getting what they need, the local animal shelters have lists of requests here. I'm sending her down a check to use as she sees fit for the effort but she says it'll go for dog food, cat food, and kitty litter. I figure it'll be easier for her to get supplies and drive them in than for me to mail them. You can donate to the Joplin Humane Society directly here.

If you don't have someone like my cousin in the area, you can mail supplies to:

JOPLIN HUMANE SOCIETY : 140 Emperor Lane Joplin MO 64801

ETA: They also have a wish list on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wedding/9NXFU5BUZCLK

They are in need of: Flea and Tick products (animals are covered in ticks from downed brush); Cat Litter, and money for veterinarian care for the displaced pets.

If you are in the area, they are looking for people to foster animals who have gotten separated from their people. They have a sign up sheet here: http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=144041035612022&topic=330

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

So for some reason, a Santa Fe high school instituted pat downs before prom last year and a couple of the girls filed a lawsuit due to inappropriate patting (the principal says she was standing there and no students complained--more on that later). So a federal judge said they had to have a 'trained' TSA person there to do the pat-downs this year (ht. Advice Goddess). Seriously. It's not enough that they are abusing people at the airport, at train stations, and at bus stations. Now the FEDS are mandating that the FEDS intervene at high school dances.

When are people going to stand up?? Not as long as the MSM shills for the abrogation of our rights, that's for sure (check out the first thing out of the announcer's mouth here). Not as long as students in our schools are taught submission.

While the courts have been guilty of reinforcing this paradigm of abject compliance to the state, it is also being taught in the schools, through zero tolerance policies that punish all offenses equally and result in young people being expelled for childish behavior. School districts are increasingly teaming with law enforcement to create what some are calling the “schoolhouse to jailhouse track” by imposing a “double dose” of punishment: suspension or expulsion from school, accompanied by an arrest by the police and a trip to juvenile court. In this way, having failed to learn much in the way of civic education and/or the Bill of Rights while in school, young people are being browbeaten into believing that they have no true rights and government authorities have total power and can violate constitutional rights whenever they see fit.

With the expansion of the violation of our Fourth Amendment rights as illustrated by such things as the abuses above, as well as the US Supreme Court decision here and the Indiana Supreme Court decision here, soon the citizens of the United States will not be citizens, but servants to governmental entities run amok. Without the right to be secure in our persons and our homes, without the right to travel freely around this country without being coerced and forced to give up those rights, we can no longer consider ourselves to be free.

Saturday, May 21, 2011

Peace, Love, and Chicken Fried Steak. Nice earworm song and a delicious idea--heck I think if everyone ate chicken fried steak, there would be world peace because no one could stir off of their sofas for at least a couple of hours a day. Thanks to Borepatch for this.

I was talking with a friend at work yesterday about the 4th Amendment and my conversation with Sen. Charbonneau. She is a dyed in the wool, former hippie, Democrat all the way but at the very least she is willing to listen. The conversation turned to random searches and the violations of police doing no-knock raids at the wrong houses and such and she said "they can do it because they have guns." I immediately said, "no, they do it because it's a power thing." She agreed that it was the officers in question, but it started me thinking about power and the perceptions of power.

A gun is a symbol of power. Regardless of the capabilities of a particular tool, and make no mistake that a gun is a powerful tool, in many ways it's the perception about that tool that increases its power over the populace. Merely putting your hand on a firearm can be considered to be a threat, even if it's holstered. That's why the government would prefer to have the people disarmed. They cannot assert their power over the citizens of the United States if the people also have that power. This is one of the reasons that we have the Second Amendment--to make sure that the people have the same capabilities as the police and military--to prevent the oppression of the citizenry.

Thursday, May 19, 2011

I had the honor of speaking with Indiana State Senator Ed Charbonneu yesterday morning about the Indiana Supreme Court decision that Himself talks about here. Although I accidentally called him at home (big oops), he assured me that he is a State Senator 24/7 and listened to my concerns which included a problem with a delay in reacting to this decision (lending legitimacy to it), regardless if the legislature is in session or not. I also said that action needed to be taken instead of letting this case go to the US Supreme Court, especially in light of their 8-1 decision earlier this week.

So I don't know if our conversation was the turning point or if he'd been planning this action before we spoke, but today Himself called and told me to check out the NW Indiana Times article that says:

State Sen. Ed Charbonneau, R-Valparaiso, said he will work with state Sen. Mike Young, R-Indianapolis, to craft legislation in 2012 clarifying Indiana's self-defense law to explicitly permit Hoosiers to resist illegal entry by a police officer.

"While times change, our rights protected in the (U.S.) Constitution do not," Charbonneau said. "Americans must live freely without fear of unwarranted intrusion by an oppressive government."

So I'm feeling pretty good. There's a rally next Wednesday at 11:00 am Indianapolis time and still Mitch Daniels--former Presidential candidate--has yet to say anything about his handpicked justice coming out with a decision like this.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

So I've stopped putting food down and the racoon contingent went down by at least two last night. Also, no opposum so that's a plus. Minus is that someone knocked down one of the feeders last night but I think we're getting it under control.

That said, control is situational and when the dog rousted the baby bunny from the nest out front, I ended up spending 15 minutes shooing the little rodent back into his nest because it was cold and rainy.

This issue doesn't even compare to the outright accusations of racism when anyone questions anything done by the present administration. And that's where Uncle Jay comes in. You have to read his whole post. Read it here.

I have several bird feeders right off of our porch and have been throwing down sunflower seeds and stuff for the squirrels, rabbits, and bigger birds. It also keeps the larger night critters off my suet feeders and keeps them from breaking my other feeders.

I'm going to have to either start throwing this stuff down someplace else or stop doing it altogether because the two racoons from last night have now morphed into three with a very large opposum thrown in for good measure all happily munching away together. It was a critter convention. None of them are particularly concerned by people and when Himself went to shoo them away so we could let the dog out, the opposum was a bit put out but finally sniffed and went her merry way.

I know they are wild animals and one of my fears is a dust-up with them and the dog, but dang, they sure are cute but I need them away from the house before we have a furry Greek tragedy on our hands.

Monday, May 16, 2011

Okay, so the head of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss Kahn, has been accused of attempted rape and forced unnamed sexual acts by a housekeeper at a hotel in New York City. Whether he did it or not will be found in a court of law, as long as they can keep him from "doing a Polanski" and heading off to France, where the United States has no extradition treaty (there is also some talk of diplomatic immunity, which would be a very bad thing, I think).

Of course there are now women (and I'm sure that there will be plenty of them) who are now hitting the airwaves with their own story of the 'Hot Rabbit' also known as DSK pulling a move with them as well.

So a couple of things occurred to me about this story. 1) Why would anyone call someone a 'Chaud Lapin' or 'Hot Rabbit' and 2) why is a money guy such a rock star that he's known by his initials? And there's a very big third item: he happened to be running on the Socialist ticket for the French Presidency with a good shot at the prize.

Another article I read have pegged him as a womanizer and a 'reflection of the French culture' (Yick!) It also seems that this socialist guy lived pretty large for someone who dictates terms of austerity to entire countries.

Like I said, if this makes it to court, they'll decide his guilt or innocence, unless he takes in on the lam. IMO now, where there's smoke, there's likely to be a roasting bunny, but in any case, he's probably not a threat to Sarkozy anymore.

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Friday, May 13, 2011

I generally like the movie Road House with Patrick Swayze. But there are two parts that send me absolutely through the frickin' roof and they are both close to the end...

1) When the bad martial arts guy torches Dalton's landlord's house. He's driving away on his motor scooter and does the obligatory pause and evil laugh before continuing on his way. (Evil laugh at :34 on the video below)

2) When Dalton defeats the afore-mentioned evil/pause/laugh martial arts guy and his doctor girlfriend (who has gone through almost the entire movie dressed in pink gingham in order to make her seem more 'country'--Himself is of the opinion that it's meant to make her cute--we agree to disagree on this point) runs right past her sweetie (who is leaking blood all over the place from getting his butt thrashed by the now-dead evil laugh guy) and checks out the bad guy first and then just looks disgustedly at her bloody, staggering darling as she self-righteously stalks back to her gingham filled apartment. (dumbass girlfriend at 3:14)

My only thought for Item 2 is 'bitch, pack your gingham dresses and don't let the door hit you on the ass.' ARGH!

Instapundit's guest blogger Ann Althouse links to an article in the Harvard Crimson about the trials and trevails of transgendered people trying to find a bathroom to use. Apparently when you have a woman dressed like a man, who self-identifies as transgendered, but still isn't comfortable with being a man and wants to use the woman's bathroom AND has someone try to correct them, it's embarrassing.

But let's look at the Crimson's report for the denigrating tone first:

At the time, Partridge identified as transgender but had yet to transition and therefore did not feel comfortable using the men’s restroom. So as he opened the door to the women’s restroom a man yelled, “Hey buddy—wait!” The man walked over with a dim-witted grin on his face and said to Partridge, “You’re about to go into the ladies room!”

(I added the bolding/underline/italics for emphasis).

So, someone is "dim-witted" because they stopped someone who was dressed as man and looked like a man and was self-identifying as a man (almost, but not quite) from entering a women's restroom. Interesting. Couldn't be that they were trying to save someone some embarrassment by walking into the wrong bathroom or anything. Or that they were trying to prevent a man from hanging out in the women's restroom for whatever reason? Nope. According to the Harvard Crimson, the guy couldn't see that a man that he doesn't know who going into the ladies' room was actually a female transitioning into a man but was unsure of their transition and wanted to use the restroom with which they were most familiar and that makes the nice guy dimwitted. Seriously.

With that kind of logic, no wonder Obama has an derogatory attitude towards anyone who sees a situation differently than he does. Must be that we're all dimwitted, according to Harvard Crimson standards.

And now for the second part. And I'm going to preface this one with a disclaimer. I have gay friends, I have transgendered friends, I have attended the wedding of a man who became a woman who married a lesbian and was (and am still) very happy for them. So I think I've got a wide range of experience with differently-gendered folks and it doesn't bother me in the least what or how they choose to be or what parts might be factory originals or not.

My problem arises when they try (really when any group tries) to make their personal issues and preferences into my problem or into society's problem. For good or for ill, most folks are borne either physically male or physically female. It's marked on a birth certificate. Public bathrooms are marked thusly so that folks with the same plumbing can be in the same place for a lot of reasons. I don't think it's a bad thing for a designation to 'sift men from women' on a restroom door, although the Crimson seems to think it is.

The crux of my issue is this: our society does 'sort' by men and women. If someone is transgendered and is 'self-identifying' as one or the other, then they should go all the way. Their timidity is not my problem, nor should it be anyone else's problem. I don't think that society as a whole should have to change labels or spend huge amounts of money because gender-neutral bathrooms are not easily accessible.

It is not my problem if people who "are not trans-identified but whose gender presentation to some degree transgresses the gender norms of their context, have had the experience of being asked if they are in the ‘right bathroom’ or told they are in the ‘wrong’ one,”. It is the same as if someone dresses in leather with tats and shaves their head and has Nazi symbols all over them would get offended at being called a skinhead. We are, in many ways, identified by our mode of dress, and that includes sex and gender.

If someone mis-reads a fashion statement, that is the problem of the person making the statement, not the person reading it and they should be prepared to deal with the consequences of that statement.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

So, there's a woman at work. She's a plagiarist, she's a big believer in form over function. If she burst into flames, I'd be hard pressed not to get the gasoline if she was on fire. I wouldn't light the match but would do a happy dance of joy if her ashes blew away on the wind. Just after I started this job, she came in and said 'your hair has gotten long enough, you should go get it cut.'

So today, I'm in the hall and she comes up to me and says 'Your hair has gotten so long, it's beautiful.' and then reaches out and touches it. I'm trying to back up so she won't touch me again, but then I see her wipe the hand with which she touched me on her skirt.

So I tell the story to some female friends at work. And I get responses like 'Oh no she didn't.' and 'How crass.' and 'What a bitch.'.

And then I tell the story to Himself. *crickets*. I say, 'then she wiped her hand on her skirt--it's not like my hair whipped out and attacked her like Medusa'. *crickets* He says 'Babe, I'm sorry, but I'm just not getting it.' So I explain that 'she wiped her hand on her skirt like she touched something nasty.' And then the light came on but not as vehemently as my female friends.

So it was an interesting lesson in male/female reactions to the same thing while also confirming my hate for the woman since she is utterly a bitch.

Monday, May 9, 2011

I heard in passing on the television news that OBL was collecting plans to interupt train service in the United States by sabotaging the rails to cause derailments. It was supposed to coincide with the September 11 attacks.

However, over the weekend, there were at least two accidents in the New York City area--one was a commuter rail crash in New Jersey and the other was an empty Amtrak train that 'derailed and blocked an important route.' A broken rail was to blame for the Amtrak crash and there was a 'mechanical failure' that was the cause of the commuter rail crash (article here).

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Happy Mother's Day to my Mom who is one of those women who is truly a parent. She was strict, set boundaries, and helped to teach me about personal responsibility. She still worries when I blog about my new concealed carry holster. When I say something she just says that 'Moms are moms forever.' I love you Mom!

ETA: A special kudos to a woman I am honored to call a friend who raised her son solo. He's graduating from high school this spring. You are fantastic La and I am in awe!

Below are links to other folks who say thing much better than I do--I think all of them together start to paint a picture of what it means to be a mom.

Saturday, May 7, 2011

He tries to go down the liberal talking points and gets firmly, but politely smacked down by the formidable Condoleeza Rice. What a tool he is. Slapped in the face by reality and all he can do is continue to go down the list. My favorite part: O'Donnell tried to throw out the coalition issue about Iraq and say that there was no coalition and firmly gets corrected by Rice as well as pretty much gets called a liar. Watch the whole thing. A transcript is at the link above.

Thursday, May 5, 2011

So the Obama administration wants commuters to pay a per-mile tax on top of the taxes that we pay at the pump that are supposed to be going to federal highway infrastucture. They want to put a box on your car that will keep track of the miles that you drive and they want to make gas stations the collector of these additional funds (not that they would EVER use it to track the movements of the populace). Looking a bit closer, they want to:

"increase public awareness regarding the need for an alternative funding source for surface transportation programs and provide information on possible approaches."

In other words, they need cash for their pet high-speed rail projects and, at the same time, they want to make it so expensive to drive that folks will have no choice but to hop on the train when they finally get them built.

Right now I drive 60 miles a day round trip. It's possible that I will double that. Right now the average tax on gasoline (state, local, federal) AVERAGES 48.1 cents/gallon. In my home state of Indiana, 55.6 cents of every gallon is money going to some government body (as an aside, gas stations make about 2 cents/gallon profit). See the charts and data here and here. So the feds want to double-tax me-once at the pump and again when I make use of my car to get from point A to point B.

There are so many problems with this that I am really not sure where to start. There is the privacy issue, since the government will be able to track where I go, when I stop, and how long I'm there. There is the double-tax issue since I'm already presumably paying for roads and such in the taxes already included in the price of fuel. There is the social engineering standpoint where the government is going to hamstring the ability of the populace to move freely from point a to point b by a transportation device that they cannot now control by making it too expensive. In this way they can both control where the populace is as well as force them to use transportation that will open everyone to the unreasonable searches now carried out by TSA. I'm sure I'm missing something in this Russian doll-type situation.

Monday, May 2, 2011

Everyone is happy that Bin Laden is now six-feet underground rather than standing above the sod, and that's great. The Navy SEALs did what they do best and they got him. And kudos to them because it was a long time coming.

Here's where I'm going against the grain. As lovely as it is to have Bin Laden floating in Davy Jones' locker, the Obama administration has now created a martyr and there's no body for proof now (you have whole countries with the equivalent of a fifth-grade education--are they going to take DNA as evidence?--I don't think so.). If you thought the muslim reaction to Terry Jones was bad, this is going to be a thousand times worse. Nothing like setting a fuse to the powderkeg that the Middle East has become in the last few months. Short game says that Obama needed something to show that he's tough on terrorists and to get a bounce, polls-wise, otherwise he wouldn't have been hogging all of the credit in his 'I'm a badass' speech last night. He also needed another shell in the game to distract from his abysmal record and ratings. So what't the long-game on this one?

Putting on my tin-foil hat (it goes so well with the wookie suit), I'm thinking the long game is to further destabilize the Middle East, cause terrorist attacks on our soil that would 'necessitate' greater government intervention in our personal freedom as well as destabilize our economy further than it is already. Rationing books, anyone? Travel papers? Unreasonable search and seizure? Why else would you trumpet this news all over the known universe? Guess we'll have to see how it shakes out.

Regarding H-S Precision marketing FAIL, I present to you Borepatch's post on the subject. They made a really bad choice in Horiuchi since anyone familiar with the goings on at Ruby Ridge, knows that Vicki Weaver never should have gotten shot that day at Ruby Ridge. Go to Borepatch here, just in case you missed the first link.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

The White House Correspondents' dinner was last night. This morning, the media are crowing over Teh Won's funnies at the expense of Donald Trump. Now I really don't give a fig about Trump, but am under the impression that one of the dinner's purposes was much like a roast, with the President on the hot seat. Since Teh Won has absolutely no self-reflection or any sense of humor when it comes to being lampooned, of course, he used his bully pulpit as yet another kickoff for his next campaign and to attack and denigrate his opponents, much like he used his first State of the Union address to slam the Supreme Court.

The man is increasing pathetic. He says that everyone needs to get back to working on what's important but I'm not sure how he's going to fit in the budget and gasoline prices and food prices and all of the important issues into his social calendar and jetting around the country (on our dime, mind you) collecting money for his next re-election campaign.

ETA: the White House still has no official comment on the news that NATO air strikes have killed the son and three grandchildren of Khaddafi in Libya.